Mr. Solomon Goes to Washington

A young student's voyage from a small town in Southern Long Island to Washington, D.C. and back, and the journey in between. A few months in the life of... AN INTEL SCIENCE TALENT SEARCH FINALIST. ~Cue scary music~

Thursday, March 09, 2006

"A Celebration of Science"

We arrived today! What a day. I woke up at 6 in the morning, quickly got ready and went to Bellmore train station. I met Brittany there and took the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station, where we met up with Harley, Eric, Carmi, Irina, Sarah, and Sheela, otherwise known as The Rest of the New York Crew Taking the Acela. I've met many before at press events and other competitions, and some were totally new faces, but the group gelled together very well and the train ride was extremely enjoyable.

When we arrived at Union Station we stepped off the train and entered the terminal to the sight of cameras and microphones recording us walking in! Apparently they were filming a bit for "Whiz Kids", a special on Intel STS, ISEF, and science research in high school in general. They're going to be with us all week. We took a shuttle to our hotel, the lovely St. Regis, where we met up with a big group of finalists who arrived earlier today and yesterday (when the West Coasters came). That was a bit more awkward but eventually we all acclimated to each other. Everyone has meshed a lot now, it's really great.

I saw Michael and Kiran, for the first time since Siemens. They're both really fun and really smart kids, and our mini-Siemens reunion has been quite fun. I also met some other finalists who I've been talking to lately via e-mail/IM, like Jenny, Kim, Kate, and Other Adam. They sent us a list of everyone's e-mail address at the very beginning and Jenny started a big e-mail thread that's just snowballed out of control, so I think lots of people knew lots of other people to start with. Lovely.

So, I dropped my bags off and headed off to lunch, where I sat at the Long Islanders, Siemensers, and Kate Table. The Sciserv people gave a short introduction, the highlight of which, they scheduled us a meeting with the President Monday afternoon! I picked up my room key and dropped my bags off there, along with my roommate John, who seems really nice (but has spent most of today sleeping!). Then we had about an hour of downtime so I wrote in the Moleskine a little in the library, to keep notes on the day (I'm loving it, by the way, strongly recommended as a good pocket notebook for really any purpose).

Soon thereafter was media training with Mr. Jack Franchetti. He told us a lot of interesting stuff, he's a professional who works with very high-up clients and delivered an astounding presentation. Some key points:

  • How your presentation is viewed is roughly along these lines: 60% visual, 30% tonal, 10% content. Keep this in mind, kids!!
  • Have a "gotcha". The average sound-bite (and unless you're live, you WILL be reduced to a soundbite) is only six seconds long, so be quick and be catchy!
  • Prepare.
  • He ended it with his description of the STI: "A celebration of science", he called it.

After that was two hours of downtime, which involved a visit to a nearby--shock of the century--Starbucks. After that was dinner, which involved apple cobbler (mm!). Kim had a vegan meal, which she didn't touch, but it looked really pretty, at least. Prettier than my plate of meatloaf and mac'n'cheese, at least.

Then we got around to a round of speeches. Key points, our guest speaker is Eric Lander, a very accomplished biologist at MIT and a finalist from STS '74! He's apparently done some pretty amazing stuff with mapping the human genome so I'm definitely looking forward to his presentation tomorrow night. On Saturday we vote for the Seaborg speaker, an annual speaker who is always one of the 40 finalists who best embodies the spirit of STI. I have some ideas in mind (I think I've met all 39 now), so I'll have to give my vote some more thought over the next couple of days. That was followed by some talks, including one from the St. Regis's resident honorary historian, who gave a very interesting talk on our (gorgeous) (and apparently rather storied) hotel's history.

We then dispersed at around 7:30. Carmi came up with the idea of maybe getting a group to explore Washington and I told...well, pretty much everyone, and at around 8 maybe half of the group went to wander. We went to the White House earlier--it's right down the street from us!--and tonight the Big Group went to the Washington Monument (a spectacular sight), and then through the World War II memorial. Very nice. We then came back and some of us, myself included, went to their e-lounge, a room with a big TV and about 20 laptops, where I'm writing this entry now. Pirates of the Caribbean is on now. I think I'm going to go watch it or otherwise explore. Maybe finally head back to the room....(Jenny is looking over my shoulder and wants to go exploring with me)....I'll write back later. Judging begins tomorrow!!

2 Comments:

At Saturday, March 11, 2006 12:50:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Adam, what a super diary you are keeping! As a step-mum of one of the finalists, I am biting my nails back to the elbows, dying to know what is going on....but not wanting to be a pest with too many SMSes.
Keep up your blog, Adam and best of luck in the judging.
Bully for you and the Moleskine!

 
At Saturday, March 11, 2006 10:58:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good luck Adam....
You are providing all of us with a great look into the INTEL finals week...
We are very proud of how you are representing John F. Kennedy High School

 

Post a Comment

<< Home